Guess who would be exempt from the death panels of Trumpcare?

Congress.

Of damn course.

The newest version of the Republican health care bill would exempt lawmakers and their families from some of its most unpopular — and life-threatening — provisions.

The bill would allow states to repeal some provisions of the Affordable Care Act, such as protections covering people with pre-existing medical conditions and requiring insurance companies to pay for prescription drugs and mental health treatment.

But a GOP amendment would maintain those protections for members of Congress and their own families, reported Health Affairs Blog.

I want whatever healthcare has.  Period.

Thanks to SGray for the heads up.

The the 9th circuit court overturned Trump’s harebrained decision to withdraw federal money for law enforcement from cities that he considers sanctuary cities.

The judge ruled that wasn’t constitutional because …

The Constitution vests the spending powers in Congress, not the President, so the Order cannot constitutionally place new conditions on federal funds. Further, the Tenth Amendment requires that conditions on federal funds be unambiguous and timely made; that they bear some relation to the funds at issue; and that the total financial incentive not be coercive.

I imagine the average fifth grader could understand that.

I want to stop right here and say one damn thing: Republicans do not, no matter what they repeatedly say, support the Constitution.  They try to make laws against it and now they want to hold constitutional conventions to re-write the whole damn thing.  (I suspect the role of Thomas Jefferson will be played by Donald Trump.)

Trump’s lawyers, who understood it perfectly well, tried to say that they agree with the judge completely because they, you know, went to law school.  So they argued that, “the January order was intended to be largely symbolic.” Oh dear, Judges aren’t real big on symbolic stuff and this judge called it an “ominous, misleading, and ultimately toothless threat.”

Holy damn cow. I, for one, am pleased as punch that we finally have a court ruling saying Presidents can’t go around threatening people with his tiny little hands.

Then Trump tells the judge, “See you in court!” which is also the favored weapon of tiny little hands.

The Sean Hannity goes on the electric teevee and says that the 9th circuit is the most overturned court in America, probably because it’s in San Francisco.  Hmmmmm, wildly incorrect, of course.  The most overturned is the 6th Circuit in Tennessee, Ohio, and Kentucky – Trump’s base.  A very close second is 11th Circuit, which is parts of Alabama, Georgia, and Florida.

The whole thing was a bustermuck.

Thanks to everybody for the heads up.

The University of Texas at Arlington (think Dallas, Fort Worth) was a little stunned to find that redneck white people still live in Texas.

These fliers were found on campus yesterday.

I dunno if America is a white nation but I do know for a certain damn joyful fact that Texas is not a white state.  Only 40% of Texans are classified as white and I suspect that some of them are lying just so they can attend Klan meetings.

How you can tell if someone who is brown has a birth certificate involves magic and alchemy way beyond my intelligence level.

They have a really scary website, where they smear their faces out instead of wearing a hood.  By the way, “blood and soil” has its origins in Nazi Germany.  Here’s the outline of what they call “The Texas Offensive.”

By the way, I make it a rule in life not to go places where I have to hide my face.  But then again, I am especially beautiful and I kinda suspect those guy are anything but.

Honey, if “probably” is the best they could do …

He took money from Russia and Turkey and then didn’t reveal that when he wanted his security clearance back to serve President Trump.

Here’s the Fun With Republican Math part.

Chaffetz stressed that the government ought to “recover the money” that was paid to Flynn by foreign entities — a figure that would at least be in the tens of thousands of dollars.

We know he took $45,000 from Russia and more than $500,000 from Turkey so, yeah that’s tens of thousands.  That’s 545 tens of thousands.

Flynn could face jail time but don’t count on Jeff Sessions to make a big deal of it.  Or to even see it. I don’t even think Sessions even casts a reflection in a mirror at this point.

The new State Department spokeswoman is Heather Nauert of Fox and Friends fame.

If I didn’t think he’s probably Dick Cheney with better hair, I’d feel real bad for Rex Tillerson.  It’s obvious that they are not letting him run the State Department and now they named his spokeswoman based on her amazing foreign policy experience ….

During the controversy over Nordstrom dropping Ivanka Trump’s clothing line, Nauert tweeted out her support for the brand in spite of “liberal pressure,” and included a photograph of herself wearing the brand’s items.

Well, I guess I’m being harsh. Ivanka’s clothing line is made in some foreign place, so that counts.

Thanks to Rudie for the heads up.

United States Attorney General Jeffrey Beauregard Sessions is standing by his man.  Jeffrey says that if Mexico doesn’t pay for the wall, the United States can start investigating Mexicans’ taxes.

Oh yeah, that sounds real constitutional.

Jeffrey is following his man by echoing Trump’s promise to get the money from Mexico “one way or another,” including kneecapping your grandmother for payment if she ever ate a tamale.

Bottom line: You have to have congressional approval to build the damn wall.  You’re not gonna get it. Every elected official along the Texas border – both Democratic and Republican – are opposed to it.

It’s dumb idea. It’s always been a dumb idea. And, thanks to Jeffrey, it’s getting dumber every day.